[TN-Bird] Re: TN Birders by the Numbers: Total Ticks, ABA Area and Region
- From: David Trently <dtrently@xxxxxxx>
- To: TN-Bird <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 27 Feb 2007 08:59:02 -0500
There may be some birders on this list who don't really know what is being
discussed here, so I thought I'd kind of cover some of that.
ABA is of course the American Birding Association. See the web page at:
http://www.americanbirding.org/
This is a really good site for lots of information about birding in the
Americas. There's even a bird identification quiz to help you learn about how
to tell one bird from another.
If you become a member (about $40/year), you have access to a list of names of
other members, including birders who are willing to help you if you travel to
their part of the world. You also get Birding magazine every other month and a
monthly newsletter.
If I'm not mistaken, one reason ABA came into existence many years ago was to
provide a place for birders to compare their lists of birds identified in
various places. While some may take this as a form of competition to see who
is 'better' than another birder, most birders like it as a way to have fun
adding new birds to their lists - lists which may include:
# of birds identified (seen or heard) in one state (or country, region) in one
year,
# of birds identified over a lifetime in one state,
# of birds photographed
and TOTAL TICKS, which goes something like this: you combine all your
identifications (ticks) from every state. SO if you have seen 300 in Tennessee
and 300 in Kentucky, your Total Ticks - 600, even if the 300 birds seen in
Kentucky are the same species you saw in Tennessee, and your life list = 300.
For anyone who sees this as just some kind of competition, think about another
thing it accomplishes. For those who like to see their lists increase every
year, it gets more birders into more places. (some will say that that just
encourages people using more fuel and contaminating the environment, but I'm
keeping this about birding) This has the great potential of increasing the
knowledge of bird distribution.
Some states promote county listing. I know of a birder who participates in
this recreation, who traveled to a county he probably never would have gone
to, just so he could have birds on that county list. There he found a western
species (Black-headed Grosbeak) that probably would never have been known to
have been in that state (Georgia), enabling other birders to go see the bird.
Birders who don't keep track of species numbers seen in their travels probably
won't have an interest in this part of birding, but you still should check out
the ABA website - it's certainly not all about adding numbers to a list.
David Trently
Avian Pursuits Nature Tours
Knoxville, TN
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